They dropped their "don't be evil" motto for a reason

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Even though I've shown that bigger companies don't leak data (or didn't used to anyway), that doesn't stop smaller sites/companies. An easier way to see if someone is sharing your e-mail address when you don't want to is to use variations of your own e-mail address for each site. Google's e-mail service allows you to add data to your e-mail address and have it still successfully reach your inbox as described at this Makeuseof.com article. As of today, this tip does NOT work with Hotmail.

The short of it is that if you use your gmail name add a "+" sign and then write anything you want to remember a web service's name (usually just their name), the e-mail address will still work, but you'll have a code that lets you know if the company is selling your data.

For example, if I sign up with Yahoo, I might use gmailname+yahoo@gmail.com where gmailname is my gmail account name. Now if Yahoo sells their database without modification and another company uses it, I'll get an e-mail for Canadian meds or what-have-you with a "TO" address of gmailname+yahoo@gmail.com. When I get such an e-mail, it will be blatantly obvious who sold me out.

With help of a friend that uses Gmail, I was able to confirm that it works exactly as described in the article so I will definitely be using Gmail for all further account signups.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 3.0 [SRC])

As I said before, the only way to get a good deal with your telco is to switch services every now and then or at least threaten to. After checking what Comcast would give me to stay, it was clear that Verizon FiOS would be the better deal and I tried to set a date. Here is my story.

First of all, there were flyers on our door and people going door to door several months before this began all advertising FiOS. When we actually tried to GET it though, they said it wasn't in our area. Song and dance, call after call, nothing. We were stuck. So we set up a DSL package because it was still better than Comcast.

They delayed install for weeks sending us only a cryptic message that they were checking into the possibility of giving us DSL (which is crap because we had it before). I suspect that they were delaying us on purpose until the FiOS became available, but whatever. We wanted FiOS anyway.

When it finally got "turned on" and we were able to do so, we canceled the DSL order and set up one for FiOS instead. Everything went fairly smoothly even down to them calling the day before-hand to remind us and confirm the install date. Then the tech comes out and says that he couldn't install it because they hadn't actually run the fiber from their box in the ground to our house. That and some switch down the street hadn't been set yet (whatever).

He said they'd call us to let us know when the diggers would be out and that he'd already set up the install for the cable for us. They didn't call, but a few days later we found the front lawn spraypainted all over the place (no big deal since we're renting). I called anyway to confirm that they were going to do this right and found out that part of the order was entered wrong. The guy promised to fix it and gave me a tracking number.

As I was writing this, some guy from a third-party fiber installer pulled up and left a note on my door. I caught him and he says that they'll be out to install next week (ugh). Hopefully I can get them to expidite the actual install after that's done.

Reactions

So far, this process has been far less painful than I thought. The incompetence is there, but less than I feared. Also, the customer service people were helpful, spoke English, and were polite. We'll see how this turns out in a week or so.

(Image source is unknown)

Josh discovered a mysterious $13 fee on his parents' phone bill, and as he tracked down the source of the bogus charge, he learned a lot about cramming. The FCC describes it as "the practice of placing unauthorized, misleading, or deceptive charges on your telephone bill" by third party companies, who bank on you being too confused/distracted/annoyed by your hard-to-read bill to notice.

Read his story here.

My main reason for digging this besides warning (or reminding) you about this practice was the first comment after the article:

Just another example of the disparity between corporations and people. Corporations freely get away doing things that people would go to jail for.

Though the Virgina legislature examined payday lending, they only solution they brought forth was to limit them as far as interest rates and repayment periods. However, at least one small town has kicked out payday lenders via zoning laws. While this may not rate "big news" it is good news and caught my attention for this alone:

The sole proponent of amending the zoning was Randy Phelps, manager of the Advance America lending store in a nearby town. His company, whose Web site says it operates 2,800 stores nationwide, was seeking to open a cash advance store in a new strip shopping center, part of the town's new Wal-Mart complex. "We're not evil people," Phelps protested to the council. "We provide a needed service."

"We're not evil people"…. Doesn't that give you chills? If pretending to hold a hand out in friendship while stabbing someone in the back with the other hand isn't evil I don't know what is.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Another breach. Who'd have guessed?

The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Ever tried to cancel a service only to be drawn and quartered by the employees who's job it is to prevent you from canceling? It doesn't seem fair really, all you want to do is cancel a service, but if you do so successfully, some shmuck on the other end gets a negative mark on his/her record. Well, that's not really your problem so use the advice in the Consumerists "9 Confessions of a Retentions Representative" to make your way through the process with minimal effort (including advice about getting out of an early termination fee).

(Image used under: Creative Commons 3.0 [SRC])

Four people who had flown to DC to share their stories of credit woe with the congress members who are involved in the credit card bill of rights were deflected by a mandate by the committee that they must release their full financial history to the public (not just to the people involved in the committee, but the PUBLIC) before they could testify.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 3.0 [SRC])

Drug companies make so much money off their medicine, it's no leap to think that there's a vast amount of corruption in the industry.

I've had a Yahoo! account practically as long as I've been on the Internet. I've practically abandoned the mail because of the amount of spam it receives every day, but I still use it from time to time and it has a lot of historical and nostalgic value due to the e-mails that are still in there.

I've also used my account for the Yahoo! Answers service to help spread information about credit freezes and avoiding scams like lifelock. I'm guessing that last one is why I got a generic letter like this:

Long story short, I asked them for an explanation, and their responses were all BS of one form or another. I used to have a lot longer and more detailed description of what happened next, but rather than get into all that, I'll leave it as simple advice: when something like this happens, complaining to the Better Business Bureau and consumer protection sites like the Consumerist for publicity are good, but won't probably help. Yahoo has the right to deal with whoever they want and, at best, you can argue that as a company that so aggressively entices people to use their services, they have at least some measure of obligation to treat people fairly, but that's a stretch.

In the end, the best possible thing you can do is avoid using Yahoo! services. There are plenty of alternatives out there and I, for one, have no interest in spending time and energy on an account that can be disabled at any time for no valid reason.